Negotiating with dreams
With the return of the Senate on Wednesday, lawmakers should put to work on issues that remained pending last year, including a potential agreement with the…
President Trump seemed to soften up in the middle of last year regarding the future of the hundreds of thousands of young people who came to the United States when they were minors and without a regular legal status. But he discovered that this weak link was also a potential resource to negotiate his deepest desires regarding immigration.
The axis of the negotiation is in the national budget for domestic and military affairs, but Democrats have insisted that any spending agreement should be directly connected with the resolution of the DACA program, which protected young people and allowed them to continue in the country they have called home since childhood, as reported by CNN.
While the president urged Congress to a solution for those he labeled as "good, educated and accomplished young people" after ending the program during the month of September, his position seemed to change during the Christmas holidays when he demanded that "any agreement to DACA) must include his border wall, cuts to family-based migration, ending the diversity lottery, etc."
But until now, the only thing that has been achieved it’s the draft of some legislative projects that include the regularization of DACA and new immigration measures, and that have been led by the Democrat Dick Durbin and the Republican Lindsey Graham in the Senate, and by a handful of Republican members in the House.
Likewise, the Problem Solvers Caucus in communication with the Hispanic Caucus of the Congress has been organized around the debate, but without any tangible result so far.
Considering that the six-month span given by the president to Congress to solve the matter is met next March, hundreds of Dreamers and their allies demand results as soon as possible.
However, President Trump has boycotted (without wanting to?) the bipartisan efforts to reach an agreement by writing on Twitter that "Democrats are doing nothing for DACA" last Tuesday, while his DHS Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen was going to the media to ensure that, as long as the border wall remains a priority, the president would be open to granting citizenship to the program's beneficiaries, Talking Points Memo reported.
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For many Democrats, reaching an agreement with the Republican majority in both houses would imply approving measures considered "poisoned pills" that could include much more severe strategies in immigration.
This has been stated by representatives such as Raúl M. Grijalva (3rd District of Arizona), who said on Twitter that "We want a CLEAN #DreamAct, not anything tarnished by Trump’s wall of hate.”
In the same line of thought, Rep. Pete Aguilar (District 31 of California) wrote: "Mr. President, if you’re serious about finding a solution for these young people, then you’ll join us in supporting the bipartisan #DreamActNow."
The leaders of the Congress of both parties will meet on Wednesday to discuss the program in the White House. You can help them by sending DREAM to 73179 and supporting the cause on Twitter through the hashtag #DreamActNow.
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